Blend.New.York.Fashion.Art.Style.Inspiration.Love

A recent New York Times article put the spotlight on Zac Posen’s recession-induced financial woes. It hasn’t been easy for a still-smallish business like his to survive the great retail panic of the last 18 months. In that, of course, he’s hardly alone. Today, Posen was back at the modest Altman Building for a second season in a row, and clothing-wise he seemed to be cutting back still further for Fall. There wasn’t a single gown on the runway. That must be tough for a designer in love with ball skirts and shoulder flourishes, but in their absence, he injected more than a fair bit of showmanship into the sportswear.

Posen gave his pantsuits a forties flair, putting contrasting cuffs and lapels along with strong shoulders on cropped jackets and pinning a brooch to the waistbands of his full-legged, fluid trousers. There was also a sweet little ice-skating dress in dove gray jersey with a silk wool skirt. If he’s still trying to establish an identity for his daywear and not exactly succeeding, Posen is much more confident when it comes to evening. This season he’s thinking short and pink, because, hey, wallflowers aren’t his type. In New York, at least, the recession hasn’t really managed to put a dent in the late-night scene. His corseted minidresses will find happy homes indeed with the party-hopping set.

(by Nicole Phelps – style.com)

Performances will be held Thursday, April 22 – Sunday, April 24
at the The Ailey Citigroup Theater
405 W. 55th St. New York, NY 10019

“Desire” creates a mood of restless longing, frenzy, and fractured timing, centered around the past and future possibilities of lovers, set to the arresting sounds of rock cello.

“Trouve Moi” a tender duet starting as a tentative reach; movement becomes a metaphor for love’s growing possibilities, a youthful portrait of hope.

Repertory favorite, “The Travelers” – perennially dark, edgy, sexy, mysterious fun.

Tickets prices are as follows:
Full-price: $35
Students and seniors: $15

For more information visit http://www.rebeccakellyballet.org/

Museum of the City of New York
March 4 – May 16, 2010

Charles Addams’s New York is an exhibition of original artworks by the legendary New Yorker cartoonist that capture Addams’s quintessentially idiosyncratic and slyly subversive view of the city, depicting his signature macabre characters, twisted situations, and distorted reimaginings of the cityscape. The works in the exhibition include watercolors, preliminary pencil sketches, completed cartoons, and examples of published work from the cover of the New Yorker. The subjects are gleefully varied, ranging from charming to creepy; they include depictions of life on New York’s subways and buses, in offices, department stores, museums, parks, streets, and homes. A special section will look at the evolution of the creepy assemblage of characters who were dubbed “the Addams Family” as they developed as mainstays of Addams’s cartoons, moving through the streets of his New York and adding to the sense of mischief and deviancy that characterized the world as he saw it.

(see original post here)

Victoria Beckham started her presentation by personally greeting each and every one of the 25 or so editors and retailers assembled in the Upper East Side town house to see it. Most designers, of course, prefer to hide out backstage. “When does that ever happen?” someone asked after shaking hands with her. As has become Beckham’s style over the last three seasons, she narrated as the models glided out in her dresses, discussing fabrics, color, cut, and construction. She sounded like such a pro, you almost forgot that she was once a pop superstar, until, pointing out a buff-colored draped silk jersey gown with a grosgrain ribbon sashed around the asymmetrical bodice, she told us, “I’m going to wear this one to the Oscars.” A cloudlike gazar confection with couture-esque hand-tucking and a blurred pixel print lifted from the Dick Tracy comic came with another anecdote, this one about what a nightmare it was to put together.

Well, all the hard work paid off; there wasn’t one bad dress in the bunch. The best of her signature hourglass sheaths came in a brilliant emerald stretch felt for day, and for evening in an antique gold metallic jacquard with an asymmetrical neckline. Where she pushed herself was with draping and looser-fitting shape—relatively speaking, of course. A strapless sapphire double-crepe column gown with a tuck at the bust and a draped back was as Martha Graham as things got. More often Beckham married the fluid with the structured, as she did with one fabulous dress that was nude silk jersey on top and densely ribbed nude jersey below the waist. The most exciting development, though, was a wool crepe long-sleeve tunic dress. Cut on the bias so that it felt like wearing an oversize sweater—or so Beckham described it—the frock had an everyday kind of sexiness that will win her a whole new class of fans. (by Nicole Phelps – style.com)

Joy Han is a brilliant and innovative designer creating a new genre of style called “Twisted Vintage”. She has dressed the likes of many celebrities in the music and entertainment industry including Jessica Alba, Eva Longoria, Paris Hilton, and Miley Cyrus. Fun and flirty, this cap sleeve dress features a pocketed bubble skirt and removable braided belt. It’s also made in the USA, so you can’t beat that!

SHOP ALL VOOM BY JOY HAN FASHION – CLICK HERE

The Public Art Fund has commissioned six emerging artists to put MetroTech Center through a process of “modification or metamorphosis.” Expect pixilated chain-link, bonfires, bent lampposts and a ghost. While you’re in the area, don’t miss Jeff Zimmerman’s live glass-blowing performance at UrbanGlass (6:30pm) or Kiki Smith’s ongoing exhibition, Sojourn, at the Brooklyn Museum (gratis thanks to Target Free Saturdays). Over in Bushwick, the two-day arts and music festival SITE Fest kicks off, while Brian Conley enacts his tabletop war game, Miniature War in Iraq…and Now Afghanistan, from 9 to 11pm at the Boiler in Williamsburg. Also, the members of the Williamsburg Gallery Association are keeping their doors open late (until 11pm).

Ever since Deitch Projects touched down in Queens two years ago, Long Island City has been one of the hottest art annexes in New York, evident by the abundance of programming today. Ride the train to Queens Plaza station where MTA Arts for Transit staff will be on hand to discuss Ellen Harvey’s sky-filled 2005 mural, Look Up, Not Down from 5 to 7pm. LIC Artists, who have been holding Open Studios exhibitions for more than 20 years, will launch their Armory Fest with a three-venue exhibition at the Clocktower Building, the Holiday Inn Manhattan View and the Space Realty Group. Other openings will take place at AES Gallery, Dean Project, climate/gallery and Dutch Kills Gallery. Elsewhere, P.S.1 hosts three ongoing exhibtions—Between Spaces, 1969 and 100 Years—and the Noguchi Museum will have its long-running Noguchi ReINstalled on display. Be sure to save room for the third annual showing of MoFA (aka the Museum of Fake Art), sponsored by LIC arts nonprofit The Space. The Chelsea satirists are offering “a unique opportunity to dress up and fake interest vis-à-vis the complex issues facing international Contemporary Art and simulate a direct involvement in the Curatorial and Exhibition process.” Only a square realist would miss it.

Catherine Malandrino’s Fall collection picked up where her Spring Nomads show left off. Named Khan and inspired by an image of the Earth as seen from above, it was a densely layered, richly textured melting pot of influences. The show was also long on the kind of crafty details that the French-born New Yorker has made the calling card of her designer-priced Malandrino label. Among all the fringing and embroideries, there were scads of leather either laser-cut into racy strips and feminine eyelet or stamped with graffiti hieroglyphs. At times, you could get the feeling that you were on a Sunday afternoon stroll through a tribal costume exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. That’s a dangerously literal path for a designer to follow, but Malandrino was unabashed: She said she was thinking about our communal ancestors and our modern nomadic life. In any case, take the looks apart and there were plenty of timely, sellable pieces here. (by Nicole Phelps – style.com)

SHOP ALL SHARON PELL ARTWORK – CLICK HERE

New York Artist Sharon Pell never tires of expressing the sinuous lines of the female form. A love of color, collage, and abstract art infuses her pieces, and her creative inspirations range from French vintage poster art and retro imagery to female superheroes and pop culture icons – many of them idols from her childhood.

In Pell’s series of S*Pellbinders, a mixed-media collection of captivating women, she unearths the complex relationships between her figures and the mass-media images on paper over which she works. This process of integration is the focus of her art.

A self-described pack rat, Pell is a collector of postcards, art cards, match-books, stamps, printed papers, and maps – an ever-growing selection of ephemera that influences her work.

Pell’s paintings have been shown in galleries and boutiques in New York among other places, and commissioned by the likes of Tommy Hilfiger and Paramount Pictures. As a teenager she was awarded a scholarship to Pratt Institute in New York City, where she studied fashion, illustration, and photography – a combination which contributes greatly to her style; a blend of illustration, pop culture, modern art and childhood memories.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

“Invictus” is a short poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley (1849–1903). It was written in 1875 and first published in 1888 in Henley’s Book of Verses, where it was the fourth in a series of poems entitled Life and Death (Echoes). It originally bore no title.

At the age of 12, Henley became a victim of tuberculosis of the bone. A few years later the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee. It was amputated at the age of 25. In 1867 he successfully passed the Oxford local examination as a senior student. In 1875 he wrote “Invictus” from a hospital bed. Despite his disability, he survived with one foot intact and led an active life until his death at the age of 53.

“I always wanted to live a man’s life in a woman’s body.” That quote, which appeared at the top of her show notes, is something Diane von Furstenberg has said before, so it’s perhaps surprising that men’s suiting is something she hasn’t explored much in the past. Its appearance helped make for one of the designer’s more satisfying shows in a while.

To start things off, von Furstenberg threw a bolero densely embroidered with chiffon rosettes over a heather gray felted wool double-breasted pantsuit with short, cuffed trousers. It was a novel concept that she repeated later with an ivory silk cord cardigan worn over a satin black tuxedo jacket and matching evening jumpsuit, though it’s not as believable a look as, say, a corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches slipped on top of a ruffled chiffon minidress.

But it wasn’t all about playing the hard against the soft. Frocks, the wrap dress in particular, are this designer’s bread and butter, and there was no shortage of feminine frills here. Some of the more interesting offerings included a simple black shift with chain mail inset horizontally below the hips, a twenties-ish belted chiffon tunic dress worn over cropped pants, and a vibrant panne velvet number embellished with a giant glittering beetle, not unlike the dress von Furstenberg wore to take her bow. This was her right-hand man Nathan Jenden’s last show; he’s leaving to focus on his signature collection. No doubt they were both pleased to be ending their relationship on a positive note for their victory lap.
(by Nicole Phelps – style.com)

Taking inspiration from popular culture, Tim Burton (American, b. 1958) has reinvented Hollywood genre filmmaking as an expression of personal vision, garnering for himself an international audience of fans and influencing a generation of young artists working in film, video, and graphics. This exhibition explores the full range of his creative work, tracing the current of his visual imagination from early childhood drawings through his mature work in film. It brings together over seven hundred examples of rarely or never-before-seen drawings, paintings, photographs, moving image works, concept art, storyboards, puppets, maquettes, costumes, and cinematic ephemera from such films as Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman, Mars Attacks!, Ed Wood, and Beetlejuice, and from unrealized and little-known personal projects that reveal his talent as an artist, illustrator, photographer, and writer working in the spirit of Pop Surrealism. The gallery exhibition is accompanied by a complete retrospective of Burton’s theatrical features and shorts, as well as a lavishly illustrated publication.

Burton’s films include Vincent (1982), Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), The Nightmare Before Christmas (as creator and producer) (1993), Ed Wood (1994), Mars Attacks! (1996), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Big Fish (2003), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Sweeney Todd (2007); writing and web projects include The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories (1997) and Stainboy (2000).

If you plan to see the exhibition Tim Burton (November 22, 2009–April 26, 2010), please be aware that gallery occupancy is limited. Timed tickets to enter Tim Burton are suggested on weekdays and required on all weekends and holidays. Timed tickets will be required every day from Saturday, February 13, through Sunday, February 21; every day from Saturday, March 27, through Sunday, April 11; and on the final day of the exhibition, Monday, April 26. Timed tickets guarantee entrance to the exhibition at the time designated on the ticket, and carry no extra charge. To purchase timed tickets for Tim Burton, simply select a specific date and time when you purchase your admission ticket online. On days when timed-tickets are required, a limited number of tickets are also available at the Museum on a first-come, first-served basis. This ticket also permits you to all other Museum galleries, exhibitions, and films.

Since his Spring show last September, Prabal Gurung has seen his profile rise and rise. Demi Moore, his number one fan, and Thandie Newton wore his cocktail dresses on the red carpet, and he made a red gown for Oprah Winfrey to wear on the cover of O magazine. His Fall collection, the first one he’s put on the runway, won’t slow his upward trajectory one bit. On the contrary, it shows that Gurung is just as savvy a tailor as he is a dressmaker. (by Nicole Phelps – style.com)